The mining industry's lobby group urged key advisors on the Great Barrier Reef not to consider climate change in the Reef 2050 plan, according to documents.

However, the Queensland Resources Council (QRC) said its position on climate change had been misrepresented in the notes, taken at Reef Advisory Committee (RAC) meetings in May this year.

The RAC's role is to advise marine park authorities on ways to address risks to the reef and to assist with policy development.

The ABC has obtained an earlier copy of two reports by the Reef 2050 Independent Expert Panel and the RAC from meetings to advise on responding to mass coral bleaching events on the reef.

Committee members expressed the view both the Australian and Queensland Government's position on coal extraction was "not consistent with its position on protecting the Great Barrier Reef" and stated the Adani's Carmichael coal mine "should not proceed".

The documents contained notes detailing the QRC's position and stated the QRC did not support the committee making statements regarding climate change.

According to the notes, the QRC argued there was no direct scientific link between coal mining and climate change.

"NOTE — Queensland Resources Council believes that the Reef 2050 Plan should continue to focus on actions to support coral resilience but should not deal with direct action to address climate change,"

The committee said it agreed with the Independent Expert Panel's recommendation that Australia should show leadership on global warming and it needs to "urgently" increase efforts to lower emissions to ensure the protection of the reef.

The committee also noted the importance of being cautious of development in reef catchment areas.

"Promoting development in Northern Australia may increase risk to the reef and there is the potential for policy conflict that needs to be addressed," the report said.

It said progress in developing reef monitoring plans needed to be accelerated and tracking greenhouse gas emissions concentrations should be included, a view not supported by the QRC.

QRC: Mining 'not a large contributor' to climate change

QRC chief executive Ian Macfarlane said the notes detailed in the report were not accurate, and dealing with climate change was important.

"QRC agrees the Reef 2050 Plan should include Great Barrier Reef specific climate change actions if it is consistent with a broader national climate change policy and action plan," he said.

"Climate change is a global issue and if we are to reduce emissions for the good of the reef then a national policy governing all plans would be the most effective."

Mr Macfarlane said he supported recent findings that climate change causes coral bleaching, but stood by the comments attributed to QRC on the proposed Carmichael mine.

"There is a difference between coal burning and coal mining and QRC's position on the latter is mining itself is not a large contributor to climate change," he said.

Government commits to environmental protection

Environment Minister Steven Miles said he did not agree with the QRC's comments as detailed in the report.

"Clearly I don't agree with that view; this is an expert panel put in place by the State and Commonwealth governments to tell us what needs to be done to protect the reef," Mr Miles said.

"Climate change is the biggest long-term threat to the reef and so clearly it needs to be in the scope with the expert panel to consider and within the scope of that review of the long-term sustainability plan."

He said the Commonwealth and state governments had agreed to bring the review of the Reef 2050 Plan forward.

"It will look at all of the things we can strengthen, what we can do more particularly to address global warming," he said.

Federal Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg announced last week the review set down for 2018 would be brought forward considering the impacts of the coral bleaching event.

"Our stakeholders and independent scientists have advised that the Reef 2050 Plan remains the right framework for the reef — the mid-term review will enable us to further strengthen this critical plan," Mr Frydenberg said.